Abstract
Traditional research contribution indicators such as citation rate and citation factor are derived from macro-level data of the objects evaluated. This paper proposes a novel national contribution indicator, National Contribution (NC), which takes into account the micro-level information given in the cited-citing matrix for the objects. We define 'elementary contribution' cij from nation i to nation j for individual articles, which derive a normalized cited-citing matrix. NC's of nations are obtained from the eigenvector analysis of this matrix. An experiment using citation data to articles in 4 journals in library and information science showed that NC, although highly correlated to citation factor (cited-to-citing ratio), is an indicator reflecting the idea "a citation from a higher-contributing nation gives a higher contribution", which is not considered in citation factor.
